Are you predictably irrational with your money?

While I have been missing in action on the DWC blog for the past month or so, I have been teaching psychology to financial advisors at Bentley University.  Recently, I discovered a video done by Dan Ariely, a behavioral economist at Duke University that is fascinating to watch.  Now before you go and say, no way can an economist be fascinating, take a look.  Also kudos to Kim Snider who let me know about the video through her blog.

His premise is this:

"When it comes to building the physical world, we kind of understand our limitations. We build steps. And we build these things that not everybody can use obviously. (Laughter) We understand our limitations. And we build around it. But for some reason when it comes to the mental world, when we design things like health care and retirement and stock markets, we somehow forget the idea that we are limited. I think that if we understood our cognitive limitations in the same way that we understand our physical limitations, even though they don’t stare us in the face in the same way, we could design a better world. And that, I think, is the hope of this thing."

Let me know what you think.  Thumbs up or thumbs down?  Now go out and be predictably irrational like the rest of us!

Kathleen Burns Kingsbury, LMHC, CPCC, is a Money Intelligence Expert and owner of KBK Connections. Inc.